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Who is McConnell’s challenger?

According to people in attendance, Grimes spoke sparingly as a number of attendees stood up to voice their opinions, almost like a town hall meeting. While a majority of those who spoke up strongly urged her to run, others cautioned the 34-year-old to sit this one out — and spare her political capital for another campaign, perhaps for governor in 2015. And some made clear that Kentucky Democrats were different breeds than ones in Washington.

As the nearly hour-long session ended, Grimes spoke up: She was prepared to stick her “neck out,” though she never explicitly said she would run against McConnell.

“It was bizarre,” one person who attended the session said afterward.

Shortly after, Grimes went before a bank of TV cameras and declared to the world, she was ready to run.

“I’m here today to tell you that I have met with my supporters, we have had a great conversation and determined and decided that we can next make the best move, the best difference in the Commonwealth of Kentucky by running for the U.S. Senate,” Grimes said at the news conference.

Democrats got the recruit they needed in the biggest race of the 2014 elections, and they argue her rollout was a success given the positive news coverage her announcement received.

But Grimes’ initial steps have raised questions among Republicans and some Democrats about whether she was fully prepared to make her announcement Monday — and whether she will be able to handle the ruthless McConnell political machine.

Grimes, so far, has no public events scheduled, and one adviser said nothing may be scheduled until later this month as she assembles her campaign operation.

She has little social media presence and had yet to launch a website that can collect donations, an unusual tack in the modern era and in the aftermath of a major campaign announcement.

And when she announced her candidacy, she was standing before signs promoting her current job, as secretary of state, not the job she’s seeking.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee officials refused to comment when asked if they had to convince her to jump into the race as late as Monday, saying they wouldn’t discuss the recruitment process. A senior Grimes campaign adviser did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Regardless of when she made up her mind, there are still 16 months before Election Day, so Grimes has plenty of time to put together a well-funded organization and she can yet emerge as a powerful force against McConnell. Democratic donors are eager to bankroll her bid to take out McConnell, who they see as the chief engineer obstructing their party’s agenda in Washington. And Democrats believe she’ll emerge as the 2014 version of Heidi Heitkamp, the North Dakota Democrat who won in 2012 in that deeply red state.

Democrats in Washington say that McConnell’s team is showing how it has little ammunition to use against Grimes, ridiculing a video the GOP leader’s team put out Tuesday mocking Grimes and her name.

“WEBSITE! OBAMA! MIME RHYMES WITH GRIMES,” Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, tweeted Tuesday. “Is this the best they can do? McConnell is going to have a long 16 months.”

Still, Grimes — who is in her first term as secretary of state — will quickly have to prove she can answer tough questions and attacks on the stump, and put the GOP leader back on his heels.

But one question she didn’t answer before her announcement to the media Monday was whether she would run — even keeping her intentions to herself in a private meeting with former Gov. Julian Carroll and former Gov. Martha Layne Collins, according to Kentucky’s Pure Politics website, which first reported on the Monday session.

“I don’t think her own father knew for absolute certainty what she was going to do,” Carroll told the website, in reference to Grimes’ father, Jerry Lundergan, a long-time political figure in the state. “There was no question in my mind that she wrestled with this for months.”